On Saturday 12 March 2005 15:27, Rahul Sundaram wrote: > On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 13:22:47 -0800 (PST), Zach Wilkinson > > <ztwilkinson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Just installed new FC3, yum update, etc. > > > > Trying to add additional user accounts via adduser and > > getting the following error: > > > > # adduser testuser > > adduser: cannot rewrite password file > > try useradd Don't bother, it's the same program, just a different name # ll /usr/sbin/useradd /usr/sbin/adduser lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Jan 18 21:00 /usr/sbin/adduser -> useradd -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 57648 Dec 3 19:59 /usr/sbin/useradd Technically possible that the behavior could vary when called by the different names but quite unlikely in this case. The man pages returned for "man useradd" is the same as for "man adduser" The normal permissions are: # ll /etc/passwd /etc/shadow -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1979 Feb 9 14:13 /etc/passwd -r-------- 1 root root 1229 Jan 17 16:16 /etc/shadow However I just did "chmod 000 /etc/passwd" and then an adduser or useradd which was successful. So we know what is not the problem. Is the root file system mounted in read-write mode? # mount /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 on / type ext3 (rw) ... On earlier RedHat versions during startup the root file system is mounted read-only so it could be fsck-ed and then remounted read-write if all is well. I do not know if Fedora does the same thing but something else to check. -- Paul F. Almquist paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Eau Claire, WI USA
